What Is When Seeing Is Not
by The GirlieGyarados
Summary: I'm not a writer by profession; I have little skill at poetry. Tradition, however, dictates that a man compose poetry for his lady, so I shall try my hand at it. Even though neither my lady, nor my love is traditional...


What Is When Seeing Is Not  
***  
  
A/N: ::hides from the Zelinkers this time::  
  
A/N: Rhapsody in Blue. The Iron Giant. Meteora. A Clockwork Orange. Sergeant Pepper. Return of the King. The Sound of Silence. ...I think that's all possible things you may wish ill on if you don't like this fic, those being the inspirations, after all.  
  
A/N: Third and last in my "Visions of Loveliness" trio. The first is "If I Never Looked," and the second is "I Have Never Seen Like This Before." All accessible under my author profile or the Zelda Angst.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Zelda. I don't own Link. I don't own Malon. I don't own Hyrule Castle. I do own some pretty nifteh video games though. And I also own all part and particle of this fic; if you appropriate it, I will hurt you. Simple enough for you?  
  
***  
  
I live in Hyrule now. As a Hylian, I suppose it's what I ought to do.   
  
My house is in Castletown, a nice little place on the outskirts, but I really only go there to sleep. (And even not always for that. I'll elaborate later). I spend my day traveling and traversing across the plains, ranging from Kakariko and Death Mountain and Goron City in the East, to the Lost Woods in the South, Gerudo Valley and the lake westerly, Zora Domain, and Lon Lon Ranch in the middle of it all.  
  
And I find myself spending a lot of time in the Royal Castle these days.  
  
It's beautiful place, full of gardens and statuary and fountains, and that's just the outside. Inside, it is full of soaring halls of white stone, and rich tapestries, and glass windows aswirl in color. There are hallways, full of dozens of tall doors. I have been in many of them, and they are wonderful rooms, but there are always more doors to more rooms and more unknowns.  
  
When I first came here, a mere child still reeling from memories of my tall, broad self, I was unwelcome, so I snuck--sneaked--in. I hadn't had time, then, to notice my surroundings as anything more than temporary hiding places. Later, much later, as the hero recognized by the Sages and the hero of the southern land of Termina, I was free to enter the castle and explore its marvel. And now, true to the cyclical nature of all things, I am using the scenery as a skulkery once again.  
  
I am sorry if this bores you, or if my words make no sense. I have little talent for composition, and when I do attempt to be a poet, I fail spectacularly. What I mean to say is that although I am allowed on the castle grounds, to converse with the royal family and their courtiers, this offer extends only to the daylight hours. After dark, when all the royal family is abed, I am forbidden from the grounds, as is every other wayward young male.  
  
You know of what I speak.  
  
The Princess Zelda.  
  
I knew that even years ago, when she was small, there were men attempting to sneak in to see the beautiful princess. I can only imagine how much worse the problem has gotten.  
  
Every day, in the Marketplace, I hear the balladeers and poets pining away for a favored glance from her, I see the playwrights working their troupe in fanciful tales of the Fairy Princess, Majesta, or Phoena, all of these plays dedicated to their patron, Zelda. The players of the sonnet game all liken their mistress to being "worthy of Majesta" and the dress shops all carry fabric of pale pinks and lavenders. The bolts are always empty, too.  
  
The guard is looking the other way. From my perch behind the hedge, I see that the path is clear. Hopefully, the guard won't see me. Hopefully, I look like topiary in the moonlight. And when I dash out behind the guard, hopefully, he won't turn around.   
  
He does not.  
  
I have no time to gloat, there are other guards, and I must see Zelda soon, or I will regret it. In the past, some fickle monarchs have sent people to the gallows for lesser sins. Not that Zelda would ever do that, but there's still the principle of the thing.  
  
I need to apologize for missing dinner tonight.  
  
Zelda invited me to dinner tonight, but when I visited the kitchens to see what they were making…well, I had to get out. I couldn't eat there. I went to Lon Lon and ate with Malon and her family.  
  
You may think it silly, but I cannot abide the sight, the smell, or the taste of pork.  
  
Go ahead. Laugh.  
  
But if you had seen what I had…  
  
If you had been there. If you had smelled his putrescence. If you had felt my fear.  
  
So I, with undue difficulty, confess to you that whenever I look at a pig, at a boar on the spit with an apple in its jaws, I see Ganon rising from Hela to kill us all dead.  
  
It's a silly belief, I know. I know that it will never happen. I know that all of it comes from memory and my imagination running away with me. Sadly, my gut finds my imagination very persuasive.  
  
So I went to Lon Lon ranch.  
  
I was late there, too.  
  
You see, when you go to Lon Lon from Castletown, you travel westerly. And it was late in the afternoon. And when the grass is soft and the sky is as ruddy as Epona's hide, and no matter where you look, everything is rich luxurious gold with dancing dust motes; it's very easy to get distracted. And sunset over Lon Lon ranch is magnificent.  
  
So, I arrived in the middle of dinner. I made up some story about wanting to get Epona out of city air for a while, and not a one of them believed it. Ingo looked annoyed, Talon was his usual benevolent self. And Malon was happy to see me. I think. She laughed a lot, at least.  
  
So, I ate their leftovers--cold chicken, milk, potatoes and peas. It was very good. I dried dishes for Malon, then she had to bring the animals in from pasture. I helped her, and after they were all locked up for the night, Malon wanted to talk to me.   
  
I had been planning all along to go back to Zelda after everyone was gone, so I couldn't stay. I explained this to Malon, having to apologize to Zelda for missing her invitation, but I couldn't for the life of me understand why she did what she did then.  
  
I'm sorry; I don't mean to lead you on. To create the drama of some great epic. She didn't do anything drastic--she didn't do much of anything at all. But she had been very happy when we were taking the cows in, the dimples in her cheeks had been huge, and then she was suddenly so sad when I told I had to see Zelda. Almost--ah--despondent. Her cheeks fell smooth again, and I couldn't see her dancing eyes because she had lowered them beneath an eyelash curtain.  
  
I didn't understand this at all.  
  
But I had to leave, so I did so, feeling very guilty for some reason. Most likely making Malon unhappy. I'm going to have to apologize tomorrow.   
  
Anyways. Here I am, dodging guards amidst hedge mazes. There's only a wee bit further to go, then I can hookshot up into the princess' balcony. The spot is a small pool, one without a fountain, with little calico fishes swimming inside.  
  
The water is very clear and very reflective, especially in the moonlight. Sometimes before, I've used the pool as a mirror, to straighten my hair or my clothes before seeing Zelda. She likes it when my hair isn't perfectly straight, but just a little mussed, you see.  
  
I'm not going to bother to do that tonight.   
  
So, up I go.  
  
Zelda knows I'm coming. The hookshot is not silent, nor am I, clattering up after it. So there I am, standing on her balcony. She is within her chambers.  
  
The room is elegant, smoky marble and fluttering gauze have made it an ethereal angelworld in the full of the moon. High arched window on the east side let the silver rays; from the size and tranquility, I feel like I'm walking into a place of worship.  
  
Zelda is the idol, at the far end, at the altar.  
  
She knows I am here in her cathedral but she pays me no heed for the moment. She stands in solit'ry shafts of silver, she stands at her altar, she stands before me, free for the viewing, what may be seen of her.  
  
She favors lavender and silk, deep billows and gauzy cloth, overlong sleeves and long skirts. Her hair is kept long and down to sleep. Although her room is chilly, she will not wear stockings or slippers. When she dresses as she does tonight, I think she looks like a vision of the western wind made flesh.  
  
And then she turns and acknowledges my presence, and when she catches mine eyes with hers, I swear upon all three goddesses that I couldn't answer a question of my name.  
  
I know that this is blasphemy, but I sometimes wonder if Zelda at her altar is the disciple…or the divinity.  
  
And she smiles at me and beckons me forward. I follow, naturally. My footsteps feel very loud on the stone, even though I know how very quiet I am. I mustn't wake the rest of the house; Din knows what would befall a poor boy like me if I did that.  
  
I stop ten feet from her.   
  
"I'm sorry I left so…abruptly this afternoon." I decide against telling her that it was the food. So I stand there in silence.  
  
"Is anything the matter, Link?" I look down and shake my head. I have as little talent for lying as I do for verse.  
  
She steps toward me; I know this even though I cannot hear the steps. She lifts my chin so I can look into her face. Which is still looking down.  
  
"How is Malon doing?" Zelda smiles when my eyebrows shoot up. "Yes, I know that you have just come from there," She places a finger over my lips, "And I just know these things, nothing more."  
  
She walks away supremely confident, and I watch her move back into her moonbeam with little less than amazement. Which, of course, is what makes her so very confident.  
  
I lick my lips and dare to speak. "Why so enamored with the moonlight, my Lady?"  
  
She smiles. "Wherefore art thou so poetic, my Lord?"   
  
"I would think that the Princess of all Hyrule, of all people, would know better than to answer a question with another question." I say with a raised eyebrow.  
  
When she laughs, I am lost again.  
  
"The moonlight is a mystery, Link. It feels like light that does not illuminate and shadow that doesn't obscure. It feels so brilliant like love, but so cold like…"  
  
"Hate?"  
  
"No, cold like…indifference." She looks troubled now, and she rubs her arms, like to heat herself from a sudden chill. I don't speak.  
  
Some of the courtiers and rich men write sonnets and poems and give them to Zelda. She has shown me some of these, the ones she likes best--whether for artful wordsmithing or for their terrible mediocrity. They, without variation, compare her to the sun, to the phoenixes. In the land of poetry, she exists as a flower, as a jewel, as stars…even by the more daring as a golden goddess. These fools are all so very wrong.  
  
If I ever write a poem about her (and I probably won't), I wouldn't write her as the sun, as a flower, or as a mighty firebird. She doesn't love as a warm, benevolent deity; her locks are not the rich gold of the sun. She does not love, still and passive, petals a welcome for any bee. She feels not the terrible, wonderful flames, like flames of passion, which the phoenix thrills and dies in.  
  
My lady, my Zelda, she loves like the glacier.  
  
Her hair is a thinned gold, a January sunlight gold. She is not immobile; she is the one who reaches out to grasp us. I do not know what heat comes from the blue fire behind her eyes…  
  
She loves like a glacier. A great and wonderful beauty, sparkling and shining. But she's so vast and so deep, that you can only _think_ that you understand her, that you know her, that you aren't merely wandering in circles, following your own trail. A wondrous and magnificent beauty. And as you wander, you find the crevasse, the great rifts. And you either think yourself able enough to cross without falling in, or you trust her enough to let you free on her own, but both ways, you are wrong, and you are trapped deep within her. And she holds you, trapped; you can't get out, even if you really wanted to. So you are rocked in her lovingly blue embrace, and you love her back, as if the love of your poor carcass buried in the crevasse means anything. And you can only wonder how many other loving blue embraces there are, and how many others are wasting away within…  
  
I'm sorry. I got carried away. I don't mean to be insulting to Princess Zelda. I don't mean to impugn her honor in any way. But it can be so frustrating. I once thought I had all of her, and since then, I have been living the error of my ways.  
  
"Link?"  
  
I look up, shaken out of poetic nonsense. The moonlight beauty is watching me, apparently perturbed by my silence. "What?"  
  
A disarming smile. I've seen the kind before. "Why did you come?" Her eyes are just like the glacier.  
  
"To apologize. For leaving without notice." Blue as ice, or blue as fire?  
  
She has white teeth behind that widening grin. "But you have already apologized." _Why do you remain here?_  
  
I'm silent. Eyes so blue and deep. Eyes to be fallen into. She moves closer.   
  
She's directly in front of me. I close my eyes, to help myself, to help her.  
  
I see nothing in within the confines of blindness. But I can hear her softest voice, I can smell her watery gold hair, I can feel her hands, her arms, and her ice.  
  
Is it to the altar before us, or the one…behind us…that we are led to?  
  
I cannot abide the taste of pork. But Zelda's lips are still flavored from her dinner.   
  
_Supplicant or sacrifice?_   
  
Kiss back all the harder. Eyes closed.   
  
Shut, like the glacier. So I cannot see how lost I am.  
  
And if I wrote anymore, any further of these pitiful accounts, I could be--I would be--I should be arrested.  
  


* * *

  
The GirlieGyarados  
(I'd Really Love To Break Your Heart)  
  
A/N: Ahh, done at last. The Visions of Loveliness Trio is complete. The first work was "If I Had Never Looked," the second was "I Have Never Seen Like This Before," and…you have just finished the third installment. Now, we start writing even more stuff…::sigh::…darn Inspiration Fairy…  
Preview of Next Chapter: There is no next chapter  
Last Words: By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower. ~Rabindrath Tagore  



End file.
